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January 28

Notation used in Wikipedia article "Prime Gap"

Prime Gap Article - Paragraph entitled "Conjectures about gaps between primes". (((Prime gap#Conjectures about gaps between primes)))

The notation used in the first and second formulae is unfamiliar to me. In particular, I could find no explanation of the meaning of the the Capital O function. I have tried to search Wikipedia and google the internet without resolution. Can you explan the notation or direct me to a reference for this usage?208.92.185.250 (talk) 04:33, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Big O notation. Basically it's just a convenient way of stating that two functions behave similarly when a certain limit (in these cases p_n→infinity) is taken. And if you happen to think it looks like abuse of the equals sign, then you're right. -- Jao (talk) 08:33, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

208.92.185.250 (talk) 16:54, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Jao - I was searching for Capital O instead of Big O (It sure is easy to run afoul of mathematical notation).208.92.185.250 (talk) 16:39, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, big O notation is linked from O (disambiguation). Algebraist 17:07, 28 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]